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St. Lucie Tapes 37 DS

TAPE 3: Judge J. R. Knott

A lease, a five year lease on the Mosquitoe Control building on the

beach. It will be remodeled and we have the floor plan already drawn up

and in the hands of the county commissioner as well as the city on the

arrangement of artifacts and articles of interest, historical interest

that we will have. Now I'm sure that each one of you have something

that's of historical value. You can let us have that on a loan basis and

anytime you wish to come and claim it, it's yours, or any of your heirs

later on would like to reclaim that article, it could be, it will be

yours right on. But we will have the use of it. We need it because we

are going to have a lot of room. This building is 147 feet long, and we

will have a wonderful museum when this is completed, and the building is

all cleaned up and turned over to us. Now, we need things, and we will

have places for it and things of interest and it will be a museum that

will be a credit to our community. We hope in the fall, at the present

time the museum is closed for the summer months, the attendance is so

small, when school is out we don't have all those school children coming

in. so we resent that or close it for the summer. But in September, we

hope to open our new museum and we're going to need some of your beauti-

ful things that you have and we hope to open up with a wonderful cele-

bration, you might say, open house, and we hope that all of you will

help us to build this museum. We will have this lease for five years,

with the option to renew. So come and help us to build a better museum.

2

Judge Knott is here tonight and I have asked him if he could help us on

tabulating and indexing and setting up files and things so he's goine to

recommend some materials for us that'll helD us.

who most of you already know it- that we do have a very

active program committee and a publicitv committee. I'm quite sure all

of you received your notices much the same as I did, and I'd like for

them to know that we appreciate their efforts and that there efforts

are accomplishing something. To get back to the program chairman, I

think at this time I should turn it over to T. H. Dandy Sanders. The

fellow that the north bridge, the Dandy Sanders Bridge, is named after.

That's what the radio man says every day and my wife says, "yeah, I know

it." And I guess the rest of you do too, but, Dandy has gotten us a

speaker tonight and I would like for Dandy to introduce the speaker to

us.

S: Thank you. Mr. President. Indeed a pleasure for me tonight to have

the opportunity to introduce to you a real Floridian, native born.

Sell you where he's from, but it's Leon County. Some of

you know ____ where that is, but it happens to be

Tallahassee. And he has lived in West Palm Beach;for the last 21 years.

He is judge of the circuit court, I think he said the ninth district. He

is about to ... historical work in ___ plans. He's been president

of the states' Historical Society. He's president now of the Historical

Society in West Palm Beach, and I know there isn't anything more that I

can say about him that I'm eoina to let him do the rest. It's my plea-

3

sure to present to you, Judge James R. Knott.

K: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen... Mr. Sanders men-

tioned that your Society was having a series of talks on lower eastcoast

history, and suggested that I discuss the history of the Palm Beach County

area. He told me that my friend, Judge McCarty had given a talk on Fort

Pierce, and that my distinguish colleague,Judge Sample was to address

you soon, with I believe a two hour speech. outlining a few of the impor-

tant achievements of the Sample family. I don't see how Judge Sample can

do-that'in just two hours. Every other person that I've met in Fort

Pierc n the past the time seems to be either Dr. Sample or Judge Sample,

or Colonel Sample or Professor Sample, or some other prominent member of

the Sample family. At any rate, I feel myself surrounded here by an oral

prestige that will be difficult for me to live up to. It might be inte-

resting to review the past background of Palm Beach County as a political

annity. Palm Beach County used to be in the same county as Fort Pierce.

They were both in Mosquito County. Now this name was changed about 1844,

and they both became located thereby in Levard County, and of course,

later in St. Lucie County. Palm Beach became a part of Dade County about

1874, and remained in Dade County until 1909, when the legislature created

Palm Beach County. When I speak of Palm Beach County therefore and dis-

cussing its past history, you will understand of course that I mean the
t
Palm Beach County area, because actually the county itself had not come

into existence until 1909. The history of the Palm Beach County area can

be divided into four general periods. The first period might be said to

end in 1873, when the first permanent white settlers arrived in that area.

4

The second period extended from 1873 to 1893, when what could best be

termed the "Flager Era", started. And the third period, the Flager

Era, extended from 1894 until the Florida Boom. I think that's a con-

venient way to terminate it. Our modern history since the boom, I think,

may be regarded as current history, and I will not attempt to touch on

that very much tonight. Incidentally, after we conclude this discussion

on my part, if any of you have some questions which you would like to ask

me about the Palm Beach County historical background, I'll be glad to

try-- to answer them. I can't guarantee it'll be correct in all my an-

swers, but I'll do the best I can.

The first resident known by name in what is now Palm Beach County,

was the Indian chief. Chachi, who lived in a village near Lake Magonya.

That's a peculiar name. I'm sure that most of you must believe it, must

be a corruption of Magnolia, but it comes from the mango, Lake Magonya.

This village was located about a mile or so west of West Palm Beach.

Chachi became a scout for the United States Army during the Seminole

Indian War, in 1841. It was during this war, which lasted from 1835 to

1842, as most of you know, that the army built a roadway from Jupiter

south to Fort Lauderdale, called the military trail, which is still a

site of a highway today. During the Seminole Indian War,Zachary Taylor,

who was then colonel in the United States Army, had command of a troop

which fought a battle with the indians south Okeechobee city on Christ-

mas day, 1837. He had eleveqhundred men under him, and lost a hundred and

thirty-eight in this battle, killed or wounded. Zachary Taylor was pro-

moted to general for his services in this battle. And was later

in supreme command of the United States Army forces in our war with Mex-

ico, which led directly to his election as president f the United
ion as president of the United

5

States. As late as 1872, there was no one living between Fort Pierce

and Biscayne Bay, except at Jupiter where the lighthouse began operation

in 1860, with the lighthouse keeper and his two assistants and their

family in attendance. During the early 1860's, a man named August

who was said to have been the head gardener for the king of Saxony, came

to Palm Beach, the island of Palm Beach, and established a farm. Lake

Worth, which is twenty-two miles long, was in a fresh water lake.

August Lang dug the first inlet, which caused salt water to enter Lake

Worth, killing the fresh water fish. The inlet later filled over and

the fresh water killed all the salt water fish. The stink, or perhaps

I should say smell, of the dead fish was said to have been too much for

Mr. Lang, and he left that year, about 1868, and moved to a new farm

west of Fort Pierce. about ten miles west of Fort Pierce, where, I regret

to say, he was murdered. A legend has it that Mr. Lang was a draft dod-

ger from the confederate army and came to the isolated Palm Beach area to

escape imprisonment, but this story is not substantiated.

The first permanent settlers came to Palm Beach about 1873, when I

say Palm Beach I mean the whole area. And at the end of that year ten

people lived on shores of Lake Worth. Practically all of them, either in

what is now Palm Beach, that is the island on the ocean, or south, and

another island in the lake called The ocean inlet to Lake

Worth was destroyed by a storm in 1878. Nineteen men and their families

by that time had settled on the shores of Lake Worth, and all nineteen

gathered to redig the inlet. During the same year, an important event

occurred which effected the future of Palm Beach, consisting of the wreck

of a small spanish brig, called the Providential, which had as part of

6

its cargo, twenty thousand coconuts. This small ship which weighed

only a hundred and seventy eight tons was wrecked on, in the middle

right near where the pier is now, the middle of what is now Palm Beach.

And the settlers all hustled over to gather the coconuts and plant them

with the results that the tropical beauty of that area became so enhanced

that it impressed Mr. Flager, with its unique loviness, and caused him to

establish Palm Beach as what became a world famous winter resort, which

is the next subject that we will discuss. Prior to the wreck of the Pro-